Tommy Jacquette and his legacy in Watts

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Tommy Jacquette, the longtime South Los Angeles activist who died Monday at 65, was one of the founders of the Watts Summer Festival, which started in 1966, a year after the riots. The weekend of the first festival, Jacquette was one of several community leaders quoted in a Times story about meeting with Sargent Shriver, then the director of the federal government’s War on Poverty.

According to the July 14, 1966, story, Jacquette told Shriver ‘that the poverty war is a sham unless more money can be put into programs directly involving the ghetto.’

Shriver was in L.A. to serve as grand marshal of the Watts Summer Fesitval parade.

-- Keith Thursby